Thursday, 29 September 2011

One bowler who was the difference

Well yesterday, the match between Trinidad & Tobago and New South Wales ended in a tie which was finally decided by a super over where an extra over is bowled and the team which scores most number of runs in that over is declared as the winner. Not many people would accept that theory with one over being unable to predict or decide who the winner of the match would be. That super-over theory is nothing but a sort of lucky dip. Whatever, a score of 139 should have been chased down by New South Wales. Thank God! The match ended in a tie.

One can go through the scorecard to see that none of the batsmen from both the teams managed to score a half century with the highest individual score of the match being scored by Lendi Simmons from Trinidad & Tobago. A fascinating aspect would be that the very first batsman to take to the batting crease happened to be the top scorer of the game. With both teams being unable to strike the ball at will, it can be concluded that batting was not an easy job on that track and bowlers could have done anything to the batsmen there.

It was Ravi Rampaul towards the end of the innings who started to strike the ball not because the pitch had deteriorated but because it was the fag end of the innings and going for big shots was the need of that time. Or else, none of the batsmen until then had a strike rate of even 150 with the highest one being Kevon Cooper's 133.33 who came in just behind Ravi Rampaul. The second highest individual score was the top score in New South Wales team which was scored by the New South Wales' opener - David Warner who scored 38.

One reason why the match ended in a tie is because the T&T captain didn't go in for a sixth bowler by sticking to a five bowler theory. All was well until Ravi Rampaul's 4th over went for 16 runs which made him the most expensive bowler. And, much to anybody's amazement, that was the final over of the game when New South Wales needed 17 runs off the last over. Until then Ravi's bowling analysis showed 3-0-26-1 still under just 9.00 an over. Having such a bowler bowl the last over was a mistake. Added to that, Rampaul was the one who bowled the super over.